Friday 20 January 2012 07.48 EST
First published on Friday 20 January 2012 07.48 EST

Sunday's juddering confrontations at the Emirates and the Etihad will not decide the destination of this season's Premier League title but should sharpen the distinction between contenders and pretenders. Whatever happens the Manchesters City and United will remain in genuine contention while Arsenal's pretensions are already confined to finishing in the top four.

That leaves Tottenham Hotspur, who will stay in sight of City, the present leaders, if they deny Roberto Mancini's side the win that would leave Harry Redknapp's team eight points adrift and also thinking more of a Champions League place than a champions' crown. Spurs are long overdue a league title. For most of their supporters the Double season of 1960-61 is a misty-eyed memory recalled by parents and grandparents who will believe another championship when they see it.

There is one extraordinary disparity between Sunday's two big games. While Arsenal and Manchester United have between them won the league 32 times, Manchester City and Tottenham have only two titles apiece. All of which goes to prove that there is nothing like winning championships for winning more championships.

The way Spurs have set about establishing themselves as serious challengers after losing 3-0 at Old Trafford on the opening weekend and then going down 5-1 at home to Manchester City six days later owes much to Redknapp's skill in harnessing the quality of the players in his squad to the consistency needed to offer the fans something more than the modest satisfaction of being the best of the rest.

Tottenham's results this season bear distant echoes of their first championship triumph, in 1950-51. Newly promoted from the Second Division they were immediately beaten 4-1 at home by the Blackpool of Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen and won only three of their first nine games. Spurs then showed what they were really about by winning their next eight matches while scoring 28 goals. Stoke City were thrashed 6-1, Newcastle United 7-0 and Portsmouth, league champions in the previous two seasons, 5-1. Before losing at Stoke last month Redknapp's Spurs had won 10 matches out of 11 and drawn the other while also scoring 28 goals.

Tottenham's strengths are essentially what they were under Arthur Rowe in the postwar years and Bill Nicholson in the era of the Double. Redknapp's players are as dedicated to getting the ball down and passing it imaginatively while providing the movement without which nothing will work.

Spurs' mentor was Rowe, the man whose influence is felt even today. An attacking centre-half at the club in the 1930s he later coached in Hungary, where Jimmy Hogan had taught a nation to play the football that was to destroy England's myth of supremacy. The push-and-run, simple-and-quick style that Tottenham played under Rowe was not dissimilar to the way Ferenc Puskas et al left Wembley agape in 1953.

Spurs' fans, Rowe said, "were well educated because they had seen good football through the years. Fathers watched it and brought up their sons on it; that was the Tottenham tradition. There was no thuggery in our game. You played football and you won the ball by positional sense. You played them out of the game. We did it in style." Rowe, in short, was Spurs' Arsène Wenger.

The success of Rowe's side proved a one-off. The 50s were dominated by Matt Busby's Manchester United, who shared something of Rowe's style, and Stan Cullis's Wolves, who were more about pace and power, not to mention the long ball. When Nicholson, a member of the 1951 team, took over at White Hart Lane in 1958 he stayed true to Rowe's beliefs but with modifications. "I tried to keep our football as simple as possible," he explained. "In the 60s side we had the skill to play the ball first time, like the Rowe side, but also the skill to play the longer game."

At the heart of Nicholson's Tottenham lay the footballing brain of Danny Blanchflower, the power and perception of Dave Mackay and the creative vision of John White. Redknapp has a not dissimilar combination in Scott Parker, Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart.

But neither Nicholson nor Rowe ever saw a footballer with the skill and sheer athleticism of Gareth Bale any more than Manchester City ever imagined themselves enjoying the patronage of a Sheikh Mansour.

Spurs' good footballing traditions may demand a third league title this time. The Mancunian combination of new money at Eastlands and the championship-winning experience of Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford looks like making them wait a bit longer. Either way, things should become clearer on Sunday.